Written Answers

Friday 7 July 2000

Scottish Executive

Children

Karen Whitefield (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken to fulfil the commitment in Making it Work Together: A Programme for Government to establish an index of adults deemed unsuitable to work with children.

Mr Sam Galbraith: We are today publishing a pre-legislative consultation paper Protecting Children: Securing their Safety . This sets out our proposals for establishing an index of adults unsuitable to work with children and, once responses have been taken into account, will enable us to take this important matter forward.

Community Care

Mary Scanlon (Highlands and Islands) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will now take urgent action to ensure that the 2,000 patients who are clinically fit for discharge, but are occupying NHS beds, are transferred to a more appropriate care setting.

Iain Gray: Reducing the number of delayed discharges is a high priority. £60 million is being made available - on top of existing record levels of funding in the NHS - to accelerate delivery of a number of priorities including a reduction in the number of delayed discharges. A learning network is also being established to encourage the sharing of best practice.

Construction Industry

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many (a) deaths and (b) injuries there have been on construction sites in each year from 1995 to 1998.

Henry McLeish: This is a matter for the Health and Safety Executive – the Scottish Executive does not hold such information – and the member may wish to contact that organisation.

Crime Prevention

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it will take to make the streets of Glasgow a safer environment for older people.

Angus MacKay: Crime and the fear of crime reduce the quality of life for many older people although they are less likely to be victims. We have established partnerships led by local authorities and the police to tackle crime and community safety at local level and we encourage older people and their representatives to be part of that process. Glasgow City Council launched its Community Safety Strategy in January 1999 and its Community Safety Action Plan in April 2000.

  In May, the Deputy First Minister announced that he was providing Scotland’s police forces with an extra £8.9 million to enable them to recruit more than 300 extra police officers. Strathclyde Police will receive £3.7 million equivalent to 148 police officers. This and our ongoing commitment to the funding of CCTV and other community safety projects will contribute significantly to making our communities safer for everyone including older people.

European Convention on Human Rights

Euan Robson (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what advice it has offered to bodies delivering a public service in relation to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mr Jim Wallace: The Scottish Executive has issued guidance to public authorities on the European Convention of Human Rights entitled A New Era of Rights and Responsibilities: Core Guidance for Public Authorities . This document is available on the Internet and covers all articles of the convention, including Article 10.

European Funding

Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will place in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, a copy of the Assisted Area map which has been or is being re-submitted to the European Commission.

Henry McLeish: The Assisted Areas map is a reserved matter for the UK Government.

  The UK Government has submitted to the European Commission, the Assisted Areas map proposals published on 10 April 2000 in Amendments to the Government’s Proposals for New Assisted Areas (URN 00/776). This document is available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre. The European Commission is now considering these map proposals, together with possible changes thereto.

Health

Mr Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what specialist units and local authority support services there are for the treatment of anorexia nervosa in (a) Grampian and (b) Scotland.

Susan Deacon: People suffering from anorexia nervosa are currently treated and supported through mainstream mental health and social work services. While some specialist psychiatric services are available, there are at present no dedicated facilities for anorexia nervosa either in Grampian or in Scotland as a whole.

  The Framework for Mental Health Services in Scotland encourages service development to be made on the basis of alliances involving NHS services, social work, voluntary organisations, sufferers and carers. An effective alliance exists at national level in the Scottish Eating Disorders Interest Group. Service developments under discussion include the creation of a managed carer network for eating disorders, a fundamental part of which would be provision of an inpatient facility for the care and treatment of these disorders.

Interception of Communication

Scott Barrie (Dunfermline West) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive when the annual reports of the Commissioners appointed under the Interception of Communication Act 1985, the Security Service Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994 will be laid before the Parliament.

Mr Jim Wallace: A copy of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Lord Nolan’s annual report for 1999, together with copies of the Intelligence Services and Security Service Commissioner, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith’s annual reports, were laid before Parliament on 4 July in accordance with the relevant legislation. With the agreement of the Prime Minister, the confidential annexes to these reports, which contain sensitive information, have been excluded from the published reports.

Ministerial Correspondence

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S1W-4192 by Donald Dewar on 13 April 2000, whether it will provide a detailed breakdown by department of the number of items of correspondence from MSPs received during the period 1 November 1999 to 31 January 2000 for which a substantive reply remains outstanding.

Mr Tom McCabe: The information is detailed in the table below.

  


Department


Number of Outstanding 
Replies to MSPs (as at 20 June 2000)




Total


194




Crown Office


1




Development


27




Education


9




Enterprise and Lifelong Learning


6




Health


80*




Justice


30¨ 




Rural Affairs


31




Others


10




  *includes replies to MPs

  ¨ includes replies to MPs and others

  The table shows the number of outstanding replies due from 1 November 1999 to 31 January 2000. This number declines as time passes, and it is a snapshot only.

  The volume and rate at which Ministers receive correspondence continues to increase. In the first nine months since devolution, the number of letters for ministerial reply increased by over 50% compared with the same pre-devolution period. Comparing the last quarter measured, January to end-March 2000 with the same period in 1999 shows an 82% increase.

Police

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what financial assistance it will give to police forces, further to the recommendations of the Police Complaints Authority that every custody suite should have at least one female officer on duty.

Mr Jim Wallace: Chief Constables deploy officers and other resources at their own discretion. No specific money is provided to the police or local authorities to organise custody suites in the way suggested.

Police

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will recommend to police forces that closed circuit television cameras be installed in every police cell and, if so, whether it will provide financial assistance to make this possible.

Mr Jim Wallace: Chief Constables alone are responsible for operational matters within their force. No specific money is provided to the police or local authorities for the siting of CCTV cameras in police cells, expenditure for which would be met from their existing settlements in light of local priorities.

Police

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what arrangements it will make to facilitate the coming forward of individuals who claim to have been the victim of an assault or sexual assault while in police custody.

Mr Jim Wallace: Later this year I will be publishing a consultation paper on the investigation of complaints against the police in Scotland. One of the issues that we will consider is the way in which complaints can be made. It should be emphasised that complaints against the police alleging criminal conduct are referred to the Regional Procurator Fiscal for independent investigation.

Rape

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what changes it will introduce to legislation in order to facilitate prosecutions on the charge "drug rape".

Mr Jim Wallace: There are no separate sub-divisions of the offence of rape in law. All allegations of rape are treated with equal importance. The Scottish Executive has no plans to change the substantive law.

Rape

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it will take to ensure that police forces are sympathetic and open minded in their treatment of victims of "date rape".

Mr Jim Wallace: The importance of tact and sensitivity in handling all rape victims, including victims of date rape, has long been recognised by the Scottish Executive and the police. Guidance on this was first issued by the Scottish Office to Chief Constables in 1976, and more extensive guidance was issued in 1985. The Scottish Police College has also developed training programmes to help the police meet the needs of such victims and forces have their own procedures.

  I am arranging for a copy of the 1985 guidance to be placed in the Parliament’s Information Centre.

Rape

Dorothy-Grace Elder (Glasgow) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it will take to ensure that drugs used in "drug rape", including Rohypnol and Gamma-hydroxybutate, are only available to those with legitimate prescriptions and whether it will commission further research into the use of these drugs in cases of "drug rapes".

Susan Deacon: Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) is a licensed medicine and is included in Schedule 4 to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1985, thus making possession of the drug without authority an offence. Rohypnol is not prescribable on the NHS and may only be prescribed by doctors on a private prescription.

  Gamma-hydroxybutyrate is not a licensed medicine in the UK. It can only be sold or supplied by a doctor or dispensed by a pharmacist in response to a doctor’s prescription for a patient whose special needs require this particular product. The Medicines Control Agency investigates any reports of the unlicensed manufacture, promotion and sale of Gamma-hydroxybutyrate in the UK.

Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body

Parliamentary Questions

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Presiding Officer when a fully searchable database of Scottish parliamentary questions, with the same functionality as is currently available for Westminster parliamentary questions, will be available to MSPs and their staff.

Sir David Steel: MSPs and their staff can already access a fully searchable database of Scottish parliamentary questions via staff in SPICe. This is currently the House of Commons Library’s POLIS database, on to which SPICe staff are indexing Scottish Parliament proceedings. Unfortunately staffing and technical difficulties have caused a backlog in this work, which is being addressed.

  The connection service from Westminster is insufficiently robust to make direct access to POLIS more widely available. However, this month we are launching an improved search facility on the Scottish Parliament website, which will enable information such as Scottish parliamentary questions to be retrieved more readily by users outside SPICe.

  Work is also in progress on a strategy for data resources for the Scottish Parliament as a whole, and Phase 1 of this development will include Scottish parliamentary questions. We anticipate that a pilot system will be available for testing by the end of this year.